Monday, July 09, 2007

last night I dreamt all my teeth fell out

Yup. One by one, they'd just get loose and fall out, teeth suddenly becoming like free and jagged stones in my mouth, leaving meaty bloodless holes in my gums. In the dream I was working in some kind of facility in a white jumpsuit uniform where a co-worker explained "Well yeah, I guess it's because of that one time you were exposed to all that radiation. Shitty."

But before these anxiety-riddled hypochondriacal REM-fueled mental shenanigans, it was a great night.

Picture it: Sunday evening, a bunch of white-water river-rafting guides with Monday off for about 90% of them, all mildly agitated from a week of being consistently cordial, patient and entertaining for boat after boat of paying clients who ignore most directions and sometimes just scream and stop paddling as soon as they hit a set of rapids.

So these people find ways to reward themselves and blow off a little steam. They rent a bus, dress up in wacky outfits (this last Sunday it was a jungle theme), go to a dive bar in the middle of absolutely nowhere (this is Canada, there's a lot of that) which they completely take over as a mob, get drunk as lords, dance on the tables and speakers, strip off a bunch of clothes, bus home, love life.

Despite not being a river guide and not having a costume (other than a last-minute borrowed rough-edged skirt and a recently-acquired and inexplicably-packed leopard-print bra - which I hadn't really yet been convinced to expose*), this whole scheme somehow became a part of last night's plan.


(Not me, not my bra, but possibly the funniest photo on the entire Internet?)

Anyway, on the way out on the dirt road to the bar, my pal (who was dressed in a skin-coloured body suit with fresh leaves sewn over her naughty bits) and I followed another car full of people to what they were calling "The Scooby-Doo House". I had no idea what to expect and didn't ask any questions because it just seemed better that way.

We took a little turnoff into what more or less looked like an old driveway crowded by bushes, parked, piled out, and climbed over an old chained gate. Then we walked for several minutes down an old lane overgrown with weeds and spattered with cow shit (some ancient, some fresh), the high meadows on either side lit up with fireflies and a starry indigo sky streaked with dark clouds above.

The goal, as it turned out, was to reach this falling-down farmhouse that they described as "the most haunted house you'll ever see". (OK!)


With two small flashlights between eight people, we creaked open the door, walked through the old collapsed summer kitchen, went one-by-one over dangerously sloped floors with missing boards and gaping holes, gingerly climbed shit-covered stairs (at least 5 different kinds of animal craps in the house, easily) and tried to freak each other out.** Except for the other driver and me, all were drunk and half naked, dressed in wigs and grass skirts. Not bad! And only one person got shat on (by a very nervous swallow who was understandably alarmed by our intrusion and fluttered in a grey blur up in the dimly lit corners of the hall). Good times.

Then the rest of the night at the bar unfolded in a fun way***, and at long last we all went back and crashed. This morning I had to get up early and drive an hour and a half to get to town, get home, shower and climb into some office clothes, then get to work to be an alert, problem-solving professional for the day.

Because of the dream about the teeth, and the fact that I probably really only slept about four hours, I suffered a bit (as my leaves-on-the-naughty-bits friend put it "it feels like it takes two hands to press each key today"). Lack of hangover (I was a driver last night, after all) was a bonus, but fatigue was extreme****, and I had to keep running my tongue along my teeth all day to make sure they were still there.


(For those of you who missed it the first time, go check out my actual plaster teeth gone wild.)

-----
* I'm a prude.

** This was pretty easy, because it was the kind of place where you more or less expect to find a friend of yours in the basement standing facing a corner right before someone drives a cudgel into the back of your skull, and because it really did feel like the whole structure was about to come down on our heads.

*** Yeah, I guess here is where I confess that by 1 AM I was dancing around in my bra like your average small-town jungle ho-bag. In my defense, it was largely in response to a friend saying, "look, are you going to be a Sally and sit on the sidelines or are you going to just go for it and get into this?" He had a point.

**** Yes, yes, my own damn fault. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts.

3 Comments:

At July 10, 2007 7:14 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've had the falling out teeth dream.

 
At July 10, 2007 3:28 p.m., Blogger sgazzetti said...

Me too. Like all the time. Probably because I have actually experienced it, and it's as unpleasant as your dreams would have you believe.

 
At July 10, 2007 5:07 p.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dreaming of teeth falling out is apparently one of the most common dreams (or maybe just one of the most memorable)I had a housemate who would constantly dream her teeth were rotting and falling out while she was working on her thesis. We eventually looked it up and although there are several interpretations most of them have something to do with the teeth representing knowledge and losing them has something to do with feeling unable to comprehend or take all of that knowledge in. Classic for a stressed student!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home